The Spectator and the Muses

Acquainted – Prologue

Memory is a funny thing. It almost has a life of its own, choosing what to keep and how to keep it. What one remembers is nothing but a bunch of pieces of a kind of self-designed puzzle to be interpreted later. The trickiest part, I think, is that of people: how they get stored into our mind.

For me, what usually happens is that either the name or the face sticks to my memory; hardly ever both, unless some good amount of quality time has been spent with the person. But I do always remember personal traits; those little attributes, or habits, or anecdotes that are unique to the person. I dare to say that even after the name and face are long forgotten, I still recall the identity thanks to those terms–a little magical, and a lot human.

So that’s what I’m writing about: special, sometime nameless people who I’ve acquainted, and who deserve these pages. They all still have names in my mind, yet I’m sure these stories, their stories, are what will forever be part of my life, imprinted in my memory. And hopefully through this recounting they’ll stick to other people’s minds. After all, I believe that we’ve all already met these persons, one way or another. Paraphrasing one of my favorite movies, “I won’t tell these stories the way they happened; I’m going to tell them the way I remember them.”